March 18, 2025 • 59 mins
Sasha talks about being an author, what it takes, what it means and how to do it.
My favourite quote of the episode is "Well, to me it means the achievement of a lifelong dream, because when I was a kid, I wanted to be a writer, but I didn't think that it was possible. It was on the same level to me as becoming a movie star. So I thought the likelihood of it was very low. I thought that perhaps one day I might get a book published, but I would have to continue having another job. So to now be a full-time author is, it's magical. It's, I'm living my dream and I get to get up every day and do exactly what I wanna do. I'm not saying it's not hard and that there's some parts of it that I don't enjoy doing, But, I get to go out and say I'm an author, when people ask me what I do for a living."
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Episode Transcript
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(00:05):
Welcome to Forrest.Chat, where wetalk about individual endeavor in
Western Australia, what it takes,what it means, and how you do it.
I'm your host, Paul van der Mey, andin today's episode, we are talking with
Sasha Wasley about being an author.
Sasha can't seem to constrainherself to one genre.
(00:25):
She writes middle grade fictionand urban fantasy as Ash Harrier.
Her debut novel was published in 2015.
Today she lives in the Perth Hills regionwith her partner and two adult children
surrounded by dogs, cats, and chickens.
Welcome to Forrest.Chat, Sasha.
I.
Thank you, Paul.
(00:46):
I'm so happy to be here.
Great to have you here, Sasha.
We've been talking before we gotonline about all the different
types of authoring that you've done.
What type of author are you?
Oh, I think the best word todescribe me would be a hybrid author,
which encompasses, traditionalpublishing as well as small press
(01:10):
publishing and self-publishing.
So I have done all three, been there,done that, and, and have the t-shirt.
as a result I consider that Ihave got a fairly, good breadth of
experience in the industry and Ioften therefore work with aspiring
authors to help them choose their path.
(01:31):
How do you go about that?
Work with aspiring authors.
Well, I run a program called Path toPublished and I also run a substack called
the Book Path, And it's all about givingauthors some guidance because the one
thing about this industry is that nobodytells you what it's really like until
you're there and you're learning it.
(01:52):
And I've been in the industry for 10years now, I figure that I've got some
knowledge and I wanna share that withother authors because as a newbie author,
I really didn't have a clue, and thatmade it really quite difficult for me.
for example, I didn't know howto interact with my publisher.
I didn't know how tointeract with my agent.
(02:14):
I didn't know how the process of producinga book looked what to expect from it.
But everyone kind of thinksthat you do know that.
when it comes down to it, you're leftin the dark you don't know what's
going on and you hear from yourpublisher and agent, very rarely.
So when you transition from a regularjob where you're continually talking to
(02:37):
your boss or your supervisor throughoutthe day and your colleagues, and you know
what everyone else is doing roughly, youknow what you should be doing, there's
very little in the way of that when youbecome an author, particularly when you
shift into the full-time author role.
So I figured what I can do for theseaspiring authors is give them a
(02:57):
kind of a window into the process.
Help them understand what is goingto be expected of them, what kinds
of, interactions they can expect theshady goings on that occasionally
occur it is important to know aboutthat you, you shouldn't go into the
industry expecting to see that, but itis important to know how it all works.
(03:20):
And then just terminology, jargon, thingslike rights, translation rights, audio.
, rights reversion, which is somethingthat I undertook recently, which
I'll chat about a bit later.
And basically understandingcontracts, what sort of payments
(03:41):
to expect when you'll get them.
You know, when I, here's an example.
When I started out, was told that myadvance on royalties was a certain amount,
and I expected to get that all at once.
And what I didn't realize wasthat is going to be spread over
the three books in your contract.
And not just that, it's goingto be spread over three stages
(04:04):
of each book in your contract.
So you actually end up gettingaround about nine payments.
and you certainly don'tget it all at once.
So don't give up your day job assoon as you get that book contract.
'cause it's gonna be more likegetting little, um, Christmas
presents every few months.
so yes, the, those sorts of thingscome as a surprise as a baby author.
(04:28):
So I hold their hands during those toddleryears as they're learning to walk and
also help them with the, preparationof their book process and the pitching
coping with rejection because rejectionis not just, something you need to
(04:48):
deal with in the publishing industry.
It is a, a, a part of the job,an integral part of the job.
You will continue to get rejectionseven after you have become a
successful full-time author.
So that's something that'sreally important to understand.
It can be very finicky by thesounds of things, what they want
(05:08):
to publish at a particular time.
Yeah, you've absolutelynailed it on the head there.
So publishing is very much about,crashing into the right zeitgeist
at the right moment, and you don'treally always get that through
writing a wonderful quality book.
Sometimes you get that throughpure dumb luck as, uh, professor
(05:32):
McGonagal would say in Harry Potter.
I think you need to, hit the market atthe right moment with the right product,
and that can be very much down to, smarts.
So you need to be watchingwhat's happening in the market.
But how do you predict what'sgoing to be popular in 18 months?
(05:54):
That's really inside informationand a lot of the time the
publishers don't even have it.
I recently did a post on my substack whereI asked booksellers and agent and a couple
of publishers, what's hot, what's not,what's dead and what's coming, and I got
quite a wide variety of answers, whichI had sort of expected because no one
(06:19):
really knows when a publisher picks up abook, they can have a pretty good idea of
the popularity, of the genre, of whetherthe market is still really hot for that
kind of book and the quality of the book.
They can see if it's going toprobably make a splash, but there
(06:40):
are never any guarantees, however,that information allows them to make.
A certain size of investment inyou and your book as an author.
And the fact is there is a mid list,most authors end up either on the
mid list or right at the bottomwhere they don't sell many books.
(07:00):
The ones who make it big arevery, very far and few between.
So they'll make decisions aboutyou based on that information.
They'll also make a decisionwhether or not you're gonna be one
of their middle list authors orone of their breakout successes.
They can't always controlhow that pans out.
sometimes a middle lister hits the marketat exactly the right moment with the
(07:21):
right product and goes absolutely bonkers.
Which is amazing and everyone's excitedbecause they didn't spend that much
on you, but your next book, they'llhave to spend a lot more on you.
And sometimes the what they tout asa breakout success and they pour all
their energy and all their resourcesinto it just doesn't come off.
So, there's very littlecertainty in this industry.
(07:44):
I hope I'm not putting people offbeing an author by talking about this.
but these are the facts andthis is what I've learned over
10 years of being an author.
And I've kind of had toreally get my head screwed on.
'cause I came into it quite starry-eyed.
I thought that my first book, which waspicked up by a tiny little publisher, in
(08:04):
Canada digital only and print on demand.
So basically they rely on Amazon.
It's pretty much likeself-publishing, except I didn't
have to pay for a cover design.
did very little editing on my book,just enough to make sure there were
no typos out it went into the world.
And I expected.
It was going to be the next HarryPotter or the next Hunger Games.
(08:27):
you know, so you can imagine how excitedI was when after the first couple of weeks
I'd sold maybe a dozen copies of the book.
I had to come back downto earth with a bump.
And guess that was my first biglesson in the publishing industry is
that no matter how much you want it,it doesn't mean it's gonna happen.
(08:47):
can't just visualize or manifestsuccess into being, you have to
actually go through your paces.
There are very, very few, evenless than the number I was talking
about, of successful authors beforewho make it big first time round.
So the successful debutauthor is like a unicorn.
(09:09):
There's very few of them.
And you'll be surprised ifyou ever meet one of them.
And a lot of the time youdon't know what's going on in
the background there either.
So I guess the moral of that storyis come into the industry hopeful
and believing in yourself, but notexpecting success with that first book.
(09:33):
Because normally it is alittle bit like an internship.
You need to do your paces, you needto get your training under your belt.
you need to experience havingbooks out in the world before
you hit your breakout success.
consider that I have notever had a breakout success.
(09:54):
I've had some books moresuccessful than others.
but I am firmly on the mid list,and that's okay because I'm
a surviving full-time author.
I've managed to diversify my income enoughthat I am able to do this full-time.
certainly, it wouldn't have paid off ifI had thought that that first book was my
(10:14):
big chance and that was the only chance.
So I'm glad that I stuck at it.
And you've had the experience ofbeing published by a publisher
and then also an indie publisher.
Was that your first book?
So I've had a few different,publishers and paths.
Should I run through them?
(10:35):
Yeah, I.
Okay.
So my first book, as I said,very small digital only press.
wonderful little publishing house.
And I guess that was like my plan BIhad always just been pitching to big
established publishers and I had gotnowhere talking 25 years of pitching.
I was 40 when I got myfirst publishing deal.
(10:57):
I. And that was the small press.
And it was because I lowered myexpectations not to be insulting to
that press because they're great.
They've been around for a long timenow, and they give authors their start
and they support their authors and alot of their authors stick with them.
I did for three books.
and then I managed to get anAustralian traditional publishing
(11:19):
deal with Penguin Random House, Idiscovered that that for me was much
more what I was after as an author.
wanted to see my books on shelves inshops I wanted people to be buying my
print books and have them reading themon trains and, sending me emails to
say that they'd liked them and I wantedto be going to book launches and all.
(11:42):
I wanted all the trappingsassociated with being an author.
But more than any of all of that, Ijust wanted to see my books on shelves.
So that was the experienceI got from, from being with.
Penguin Random House.
That was a three book deal.
In the meantime, um, between thetwo, I'd had a little blip where
I tried some self-publishing.
(12:03):
I put out five books in rapidsuccession probably within 18
months, really got nowhere with that.
I did not know what I was doing.
I could see other people doingit and having major success,
and I couldn't understand whythat wasn't happening for me.
I understand now because I look backand I go, ah, I actually had not hit
(12:27):
the right genre, no one could reallyunderstand what, what genre my books were.
And for that kind of publishing,you need to be a hundred percent
sure of the kinds of books you'reputting out and who your readers are.
So all of that was a bitconfused mess for me.
So yeah, hardly sold any of those.
(12:48):
then I transitioned from a, the, thebig publisher, penguin Random House.
I went over to Pantera Press, whichis a medium-sized Australian publisher
who've had some, big successes andsome moderate successes and, you know,
they've kind of been there, done that.
I really loved the angle that they had.
They were a progressive, dynamic, changefocused publisher, which is kind of the
(13:12):
reason, reason d'etre for my writing.
I like to affect changethrough my writing, which
I'll talk about a bit later.
so I really jelled beautifully withthe publisher, the role, because of
course when we talk about a publisher,most of us mean a publishing house,
but actually a publisher is arole within the publishing house.
(13:34):
my publisher there, Lex Hurst, isthe publisher I still work with today
for my traditionally published books.
went over to her in 2019.
My first book with them came out in 2021.
just we skipped over thecovid year, thank goodness.
And, I've had a book out almostevery year with them since they
(13:55):
also publish my middle grade books.
my Alice England books as Ash Harrier.
And since then I have also decided that Iwould self-publish a couple of other books
kind of as something to keep me busy inthe background because I find traditional
publishing is a little bit slow for me.
One book a year or everycouple of years suit me.
(14:19):
I need to be writing more than that.
So this last year requested my rights backfrom my first little digital publisher.
I had three books with them, as Isaid, and the rights had expired.
So I contacted them and said I wouldlike my rights back because I want to
rewrite those books and I wanna putthem out myself and just give them
(14:40):
another little chance in the market.
So that's where I'm at now.
I've got, two self-published booksnow, uh, in the last six months, and
got another one coming out in May andanother one coming out in September.
We've got a very good schedule there.
(15:00):
You know where you're going.
I coming.
Yes.
And I never give myselftime to stop and breathe.
It's sort of, that comment almost seems alittle bit, uh, strange because you think
that writing is something that you wantto actually stop and breathe and write.
Yeah, look, I guess, I've got twospeeds and slower one I use for my
(15:26):
traditionally published books, sothe book that is coming out next,
which is not until March, 2026.
Has been a much slower process.
It involved a lot of research.
it's a historical book it's a, a big book.
It's 130,000 words.
And, it took a long time towrite and a long time to edit.
(15:48):
And now it's gonna take along time to prep production
because we wanna do this right.
wanna get it out to advanced readersand the media with a really long
period of time for them to read it,review it, and hopefully promote it.
Whereas with self-published, you tendto work a lot faster because it is about
(16:11):
capturing a moment, getting a book outin a moment that people want to read
that kind of book, then capturing theminto some kind of email list, so that
they are going to buy your other books.
So you wanna get books out prettyquickly so you've got a backlist behind
you that these people are gonna be.
(16:32):
So it's quite a different approach.
One of them is very much theartist, the creative artist, much
more traditional kind of mindset.
And the other one is the business,it is, a hustler basically.
So I've got my, my hustle role,and then I've got my artiste role.
I can see that.
you really wanna be balancing that.
(16:53):
And I would imagine that, they bothcan take up a lot of your time.
Yeah, you're right there.
find that the business side can take up,it's like a black hole of time and energy.
can take everything out of you.
So I have to be careful.
I've, I found myselfquite burnt out last year.
It was after running somethingcalled a Kickstarter.
(17:15):
So it's basically for your listeners.
Who might not have heard of it.
It is a crowdfunding platformessentially you do like an early release.
So if you're an author, you can do a bitof an early release or a special edition
release and people back their projectand in doing so, they buy the product.
but they only lose their moneyor spend their money if the
(17:38):
project hits a certain goal.
So my book did this was the one that Itook the rights back for and I created an
early special edition with hardcover anda special dust jacket and all of that.
it got funded to the point whereI could pay for my editor, for my
cover design, for the productionof the book, setting everything up.
(18:00):
then, everyone got their books aroundHalloween last year, which was suitable
because it's kind of a spooky story.
And then I released it to the publicjust this month on the 2nd of February.
that was amazing.
But talk about energy and timerequired to run that Kickstarter.
I had never done anything like thatbefore, I was absolutely thrilled
(18:22):
when it hit its target within thefirst, I think it was 12 hours.
So that was, you know, blew my mind.
But then you have to continue.
And the rule is, with a Kickstarter, youhave to post about it on your socials
much more than you feel comfortable with.
And I'm a bit of an introvert.
I also hate asking peopleto do things for me.
That's one of my, myblockages, my soul blockages.
(18:45):
So with a Kickstarter, you have to askpeople to do things for you continually.
And you also have to bereally extroverted about it.
So you have to get on video and youhave to talk to people, publicly.
So I was getting on there everyday and saying, Hey, coming back my
Kickstarter, and hey, will you helpme spread the word and share my posts?
And it was very uncomfortable for me.
(19:08):
was right out of the comfort zone.
And at the end of it, I had this periodwhere I felt very flat and very tired.
I needed a lot of sleep.
I felt a bit depressed aswell, and very uncreative.
I couldn't write like mybrain, no work no more.
So, um, luckily after about amonth's rest, I came out of that
(19:31):
and things got back to normal.
But I was panicking for a while.
I thought, oh my gosh,have I expended myself?
Am I no more going to be an author?
It's amazing when you get intosomething, so deeply and takes over
your life in effect that you haveto pull back almost completely and
wait before other things come back.
It's sort of like a healingprocess you have to go through.
(19:53):
I.
That's so true.
Yeah, that's exactly what it was.
It was almost like period of,intense training and, you know,
performance, high performance.
And then I needed thatrest period afterwards.
if only I'd come out of itphysically, like I'd been through a
period of intense training and highperformance, but it was just the
(20:14):
mental stuff that was going on for me.
Yeah, on the physical side, we regularlysee people who run marathons and they
do so much getting up to the marathon,like they've really had to work hard
to get there and they get through it.
And then you don't see them for a monthor, or longer sometimes because they're
(20:37):
just over the whole process of running.
They don't even wanna pull their shoes on.
And that sounds a very similar thingto what, what you've had that was a
physical example and, and yours is amental example, so it can happen in both.
Spheres and probablyin other ways too, but.
Yeah, absolutely.
And one of the things that people oftendiscover about being a creative, so
(20:59):
being an artist or um, a performer ora poet or an author, is that if you're
stressed, very hard to tap the creativeWell, so it's happened before to me when
one of my children was going through asevere mental health crisis and quite
prolonged where I, I actually didwonder if I had told all the stories
(21:20):
that were in me because I couldn't findanything that I wanted to write about.
bring myself to write.
But after things improved a bit withmy, um, with my child, then it came
back, the creative well opened up again.
So that was, that was a relief.
need to, when you find yourselfin that spot, you need to trust
(21:40):
that it's gonna come to an end,will find that creativity again.
but during that time, justallow yourself to, to have the,
the black moment, I suppose.
don't try and push through, because Ithink anything you write is probably not
going to be, it's not gonna come out well.
It'll be strained and forcedand it, yeah, it won't, it won't
(22:02):
be your best creative work.
So you might as well just letyourself have that recovery time.
Yes.
You're better off doing the recovery.
Definitely.
absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
some slack.
You know, I need to take my own adviceto be quite honest, but this is what I
tell my, my, authors that I work with.
know, if you're having a reallybad time, put things on pause with
(22:23):
your writing, come back to it.
thing that writers have is theinsatiable urge to write, and
that's never gonna go away.
You might have periods where it'sless strong, it's never gonna go away.
That's comforting to know.
So we've actually talked a few thingsabout what it takes you to be an author.
Is there anything you might want to addto what it takes you to be an author?
(22:49):
Yeah, I would say the first thingthat, makes an author is reading.
So when I was a child, we didn'thave a lot of money, but I had a
very resourceful older sister onething she was really good at was
begging, borrowing and stealing books.
And I say that quite literally becausea lot of our books had still had their
little library slip in them, becauseshe had just never returned them.
(23:12):
I consider it a virtuous theft.
However, because what she wasdoing was providing for her younger
siblings, her own little library andI would go and borrow books from it.
And, so therefore Ibecame a voracious reader.
I also borrowed booksmyself from libraries.
and I, I'm sure I occasionallyaccidentally stole them as well because,
(23:33):
you know, sometimes years later you findone in the bottom, right at the bottom
of your bag or your closet or whatever,and you go, oops, one never went back.
I also had family members who gaveme books for my birthday 'cause
they knew that I was a reader.
I had a good collection ofbooks and I read and I reread.
And for me it was escapism.
I'm pretty sure now that Ilook back that I'm undiagnosed,
(23:57):
maybe autism spectrum disorder.
And therefore, me, a lot of thesocial world at school was a mystery.
I was quite introspective and quiteuneasy in that school environment.
when all else failed, go and sitin the library and read a book.
(24:19):
Um, it was my escape.
then when I discovered I couldwrite, and I still remember this,
I still remember learning to print,which was quite, you know, everyone
learns to print, print letters.
But then around the age of eight,they taught us running, writing.
And for me that was a revelation.
I remember going and sitting inmy school library in a beanbag
(24:41):
just with a bit of paper and justpracticing my running writing.
And I'm sure it was all wrongbecause I wasn't doing it
under guidance or anything.
But what it did for me wasrealize that I could write faster.
I could write things.
So I started writing stories and Iwas that annoying kid at school who
would hand in a 10 page story whenthe teacher only wanted one page.
(25:01):
I am sure they probably didn't read it.
They just, you know, gave me thesmiley face on this stamp at the end.
but yeah, once I realized that, um,it wasn't enough to be handing in
the stories at school, I startedwriting them for my friends, or
for my sisters, or, or for myself.
it started as letters to my friends and Iwould make up little stories within those.
(25:22):
And then it became radioplays where we would record
things on our cassette player.
And, then it became stories,and the stories became books.
So by the age of 14, I hadwritten my first book length
story, it never got finished.
You know, the thing was massive.
so early reading turned into writing.
(25:42):
And for me, then thewriting became the escapism.
It was my way of switching off mybrain my brain had a lot of messy stuff
going on in it, as all teenagers do.
But I think with the undiagnosedneuro neurodivergence as well,
there was probably a lot of angstgoing on in there, I now see in my
kids because they've got it too.
(26:03):
They've been diagnosed, which theyuse various methods to switch off.
they both write as well,and they both read.
So I believe that, a lot of authors, alot of writers have neurodiversity in
their background and they're using it asa way to calm the thoughts, get some of
(26:24):
the ideas out, and escape from some of thedifficulties of the neurotypical universe.
So I guess that's, um,probably my biggest.
for anyone who wants to be a writeris make sure you're also a reader.
I have met people who say, I,I'm a writer, but I don't read.
I always look at them with a veryskeptical eyebrow because, I just don't
(26:48):
see how you can really understand wordsand writing without having done the
hard yards of being the reader as well.
So I would recommend to them thatthey go away and do some reading, or
at least be listening to audio booksand, you know, reading something.
I just don't see how you canmaster the craft of writing if
you haven't also been a reader.
(27:09):
It is sort of like nothaving a feedback loop.
Yes, yes.
And I think it's Roald Dahl, or itmight have been one, oh, it's one
of the other very well known authorswould spend, three or four hours in
the morning writing and then three orfour hours, like the matching amount
(27:30):
of time in the afternoon reading.
actually how I do my day.
I do the output in the morning andI do the input in the afternoon.
because to move very hard, hardand fast when it comes to writing.
destroyed keyboards over theyears will be testament to that.
in the morning it's my writing time,it's when my brain is switched on.
I've got a lot of energy, so Ipour all those words onto the page.
(27:53):
Then in the afternoon, it's likemy kind of dead brain time and
I've thought all those words outand what I need to do is refill.
So I need that feedbackcycle to happen there.
That's when I read, and I dospend probably as long reading
as I do writing every day.
It is interesting to hear that youhave a balance like that and you're
not the only one that has that balance.
(28:16):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think a lot of authors and writersthink that they just have to pour
out as many words as they can, butthat's not sustainable because.
think the words would dip inquality towards the end of the day.
You know, you just, it's hard mental work,creating stories in your head and putting
them onto a page, that's, that's reallyquite a process when you think about it.
(28:38):
And there is a point thereduring the writing of any
book where it does consume me.
And at that point I tend to all daylong and I can feel it, you know, by
the end of a couple of weeks of that.
I'm like a little hunched bentover, pretzel, you know, physically
I'm so exhausted and sore.
(29:01):
and it's always, oh, thankheavens when it actually finishes.
But the, story takes over atthat point, and there's just
nothing I could do about it.
I just have to get the rest of it out.
It's almost like I'm on a downhillski run and I just have to stay
on the skis and let it happen.
But that's usually only thelast quarter of the book.
So up to that point, I have, I'm a lotmore balanced in the actual process.
(29:24):
You can see the finish line by the soundof things, and you've got momentum.
yes, the momentum and it carriesyou, but yeah, you're gonna be sore.
It's a very sedentary process, writing.
Yes.
It's amazing how all of thatcomes together and you, and you
end up with the finished product.
Yes.
Yeah.
(29:45):
And I was trying to, explain beforethat there's an analogy, quite a
famous one that, pouring out thatfirst draft is getting sand into
your sandpit, and then you've got theediting process, and that's where you
make your castles out of the sand.
Because before that, what you're doingis you're telling yourself the story.
So you're formulating characters andyou're formulating instances, and
(30:08):
scenes, and, moments in the plot.
But then what you have todo is make it coherent.
And make sure that it's tight, that yourcharacters are developing through the
action in the plot, that you haven'tgot superfluous scenes or that you
have expressed all of the ways thatthe character has to grow through
what happens to them in the story.
(30:29):
that bit is, it's a slowerprocess for me anyway.
For some people, it's quicker, and it is,it's not a process to be skipped over or
taken lightly because if all you've doneis pour words into a bucket, then you
need to be making something beautiful,weaving them all together that you've got
(30:49):
something that is an artwork at the end.
the same way that a, an artist, andmy partner is an artist, so I can, I
can, speak with some knowledge here.
They block in thebackground of their canvas.
So they, they do what's blocking it.
They call blocking in, which isbasically getting some color into
the background on the canvas.
(31:09):
And then, some shape.
And then they go in and it's much moredetailed process and the color and the
shape on the canvas is the equivalentof the first draft for a writer.
And then going in and addingthe detail and moving things
around and making it an artwork.
That's the editing process for the writer.
That's very interesting.
I've not heard of that connectionbetween doing artwork and, and
(31:35):
writing a book and you are living it.
Yes.
I've had a lot of timeto, um, think about this.
I watch him go and, I mean, not anartist at all, so it's kind of mind
blowing to watch produce something.
and then sometimes I'll come inpartway through and I'll look at
it and I'll think to myself, well,hope he doesn't ask me what I think.
(31:58):
'cause I don't thinkthat's very good at all.
Doesn't.
And it's exactly the same as if he wereto come in and look at one of my things
partway through the editing process.
And he'd go, that's not making sense.
And why is this characternot doing this here?
And, and all of that, you know?
But then at the end,his artwork is stunning.
(32:20):
And at the end, hopefully my bookis coherent and, and well woven
so that it's a, a strong story.
You talk about the, the process.
How do you resolve the mind workingat one speed and you're typing
at a totally different speed.
Oh, sometimes I wish myfingers could move fast.
(32:44):
I actually tight with two fingers.
I never learned to touch type, but I typedso fast with these two fingers, which
is probably why my keyboards because Ilearnt to type on, I taught myself to type
on a manual typewriter and therefore Istill type as if I'm typing on a manual
typewriter, which is hard and fierce.
So, yeah, these two fingershave got a lot of power in them.
(33:06):
They can move pretty fast, I suppose.
It is frustrating sometimes 'causeyou do want 'em to move faster and
some people, dictate their storiesand then have AI transcribe them.
And I thought maybe I could do thatand possibly I need to practice more.
But when I did it, I found that Irambled and my story was not tight at
(33:27):
all and I pretty much had to deletethe whole scene that I dictated.
for me, it's very much a process of thethinking occurs through the kinesthetic
movement of my fingers, tapping away atletters or scratching with a pen on paper.
I think that they're pretty well matched.
Mostly I'm thinking sentencesformulating them in real time
(33:49):
as I'm putting them onto a page.
But yeah, you're right.
Sometimes, especially during thatperiod, towards the end, when I'm
on the downhill run, I can't keep upwith what's coming, what's happening
in the head, um, on the page.
So, which is why I end up so tired.
Physically tired.
Yeah.
But most of the time itmatches up pretty nicely.
we've had a good look now atwhat it takes to be an author.
(34:13):
We'll have a break and afterthe break we'll come back and
have a look at what it means.
We've had a look at whatit takes to be an author.
Now let's have a look at whatit means, Sasha, what does it
mean to you, your family or thecommunity that you are an author?
(34:38):
Well, to me it means the achievementof a lifelong dream, because when I
was a kid, I wanted to be a writer, butI didn't think that it was possible.
It was on the same level tome as becoming a movie star.
So I thought the likelihoodof it was very low.
I thought that perhaps one day I mightget a book published, but I would
(35:00):
have to continue having another job.
So to now be a full-timeauthor is, it's magical.
It's, I'm living my dream andI get to get up every day and
do exactly what I wanna do.
I'm not saying it's not hard andthat there's some parts of it that
I don't enjoy doing, But, I get togo out and say I'm an author, when
(35:24):
people ask me what I do for a living.
I get to write that on censusforms and, I get to go out.
I've made it.
and when I go out and run workshops, whichis kind of a secondary source of income
for me, even then when I'm teaching,I'm still being an author because I'm
(35:45):
teaching other people how to be an author.
So for me, it means everything.
And I hope it's never taken away fromme because I'll be a very, very sad
little sad little sack in the corner.
what it means to my family is,
I have been able to show mychildren that you can achieve your
dream, which is an amazing thingto role model for your children.
(36:09):
I think it's also helped my partner,get back into his art because
when I met him around 12 yearsago, he had stopped doing art.
And I have to admit, had notstopped, but certainly put fiction
as a backseat to, you know, inthe backseat on the back burner.
(36:30):
And when we met each other,we said to each other, you
know, what are your hobbies?
And I said, I love writing and reading.
And he said, can I seesomething that you've written?
And at first I thought to myself, no way.
And then I came round and I said, okay.
'cause no one had ever asked me before.
And so I showed him what I'd written.
And I said, by the way, you'vegotta show me some of your art now.
(36:52):
So he did that.
And then I said to him, whyaren't you still painting?
You're amazing.
And he said to me, whyaren't you published?
You're amazing.
And I said, well, I'm not published.
'cause no one wanted to publish my work.
And you know, I've got threenovels sitting there that
no one wanted to publish.
And he said, well, why don'tyou write something new?
and this is gonna sound crazy.
But I had never thought of that.
(37:13):
I had just been flogging away at thesethree novels for so many years and
just trying to get them published.
it had never occurred to me towrite something completely new.
So I did.
And that was my first published novel.
And he started doing art again.
He was creating gifts for me, for my kids.
he was doing artworks for hisfamily and then he got a place
(37:38):
in an exhibition and then he gotanother place in another exhibition.
And so we kind of created this environmentfor each other where we could both
creatively thrive, which is I think what.
relationship is founded on, andeven now, he hasn't quit his day job
yet, but he's doing art regularly.
He's going into exhibitionsa couple of times a year.
So I'm really incredibly proud of him.
(38:00):
And now my kids, they,pursue their dreams as well.
So one of them is working full-timein a retail job, is also creating
beautiful things and selling them online.
And my other child is, alsomaking beautiful things
and doing a lot of writing.
they have now started doingsome author PA services.
(38:22):
So they're kind of coming intothe author industry as well.
So they're helping self-publishedauthors with things like uploading
books and cover design and so on.
So I think that they've both reallybenefited from seeing both me and
my partner pursuing our creativeloves and making careers out of them.
But there is also the other side,which is that I have to go away fairly
(38:46):
regularly, for book tours and on writingretreats and running writing retreats
and doing appearances and workshops.
So I'm kind of requiredelsewhere a lot of the time.
so that, I suppose, must bea bit of a strain on them.
Plus I've become very hard to knowand difficult to live with around
(39:06):
that downward hill time of thebook writing where I literally
don't want to do anything else.
And they're kind of like, okay, wehave to go see my parents this weekend.
And I'm like, uh, do you thinkI'd be offended if I didn't come
because I just wanna sit down andwrite for the next 36 hour stream.
So, um, there's that side ofit as well for the community.
(39:29):
I think that books integral to thecommunity and I, you know, I've actually
got a lot of fears around AI and thedevelopment of streaming services and
so on, because they have taken overthat form of entertainment that people
were accessing through books before.
so it is not a very comfortable spaceat the moment to be, to be an author,
(39:50):
but believe there will always bepeople who want to read books and the
purpose they serve for those people.
Are manyfold, there's There'sentertainment, there's learning about life
there's learning about culture andother parts of the world and difference.
(40:14):
And the big thing for me when Iwrite is I've got a real passion
for social justice and for equality.
and all of that bleedsthrough into my writing.
So I've learned a lot from my kidsin terms of, understanding diversity
and difference in the community.
And that comes in throughmy writing as well.
So what I hope to do, and I'm not adidactic writer, I don't kind of go,
(40:38):
you know, this, this is the way theworld should be, or anything like that.
But I do write about difference andI write about how people understand
difference and come to accept it.
So doing that, what I hope to dois give people an insight into that
difference, but also give them hope.
(41:00):
So people who, who are differentand might not feel accepted in
society, show them visions of spacesand people who will accept them.
So a lot of my, especially my young adultand children's books feature the, what
they call the troop of found family.
it's where they don't necessarilyget everything they need from their
(41:22):
actual family, but when they findthis group of friends who accept
them for exactly who they are, thenthey get all the things they need.
And it's also about, I guess, familiescoming to terms with difference.
You know, there's a lot of thatgoing on in my books as well.
So that's my why.
(41:42):
It's, an amazing why to,be able to, put out there.
And as an author, you get to,choose how you go about that.
Yes, absolutely.
And as I say, I am with a veryprogressive kind of social change oriented
publisher, they're quite comfortablewith me writing things that, are kind
of challenging readers sometimes.
(42:04):
sounds like there's, lots of, positivemeanings there for the writing that
you do and also for your family and theway that, they're able to do what they
want to do simply because they've seenyou having a go at it for yourself.
Yeah, and I guess I shouldn'ttake credit for that completely.
I mean, we've always kind of supportedeach other, but to me it was always
(42:24):
important that my kids understood thatwhat we are born into is a system.
And it's got lots of cogs and wheels,and they shouldn't be fooled into
thinking that their whole reason forexisting is to work for someone else
and, produce stuff and, you know,kind of tie, just tie completely into
(42:45):
a, a consumer capitalist culture.
What I want them to understand is that weneed to find spaces within ourselves that,
give us joy and don't necessarily have anykind of financial value attached to them.
So a lot of what they docreation for creation sake.
(43:10):
I suppose what I've been able todo is turn that into a career, but
haven't lost the love of it either.
So yeah, it's kind of win-win for me.
But, I do want everyone to know thatyou don't have to always do things
that work into the economy in some way.
you should and can create thingsthat just add joy and beauty
(43:35):
to the world and to your life.
That's the whole oppositeof, stem science, technology,
engineering, mathematics.
And then there's the other sideof things, which is the social
sciences and art that, is needed forcommunity to actually be a community
(43:57):
And when you
how unis are being funded now you've gotlow course bills for those STEM topics.
And, and fair enough for some ofthe people, you know, some of the
industries we really need people inlike teaching and, nursing and so
on, but the arts and social sciences.
Are penalized, you know?
So basically we're doing is charginghuge amounts of money for degrees where
(44:23):
people are gonna become critical thinkers.
And to me that's a little bit suspicious.
If, if we're kind of not encouragingcritical thinking in terms of
culture and society, why not?
What are we afraid of?
Are we afraid of criticism?
Yeah.
So I, I, I'm a strong believerthat the arts and social
(44:44):
sciences are vital in society.
And I mean, what's happeningin the world right now?
There's, there's never been a moreimportant time to have critical thinking,
prioritized in a learning environment.
And you mentioned concerns aboutai and to me that looks like, STEM
(45:06):
attempting to take over the, socialsciences, maybe not the art, although,
they do pictures and stuff too,
Oh, absolutely the arts there's a lotof fear, from authors that soon AI will
be good enough to write stories that youcan't tell haven't been written by humans.
(45:27):
that mean we no longer have a job?
I think, um, I'm not anti AI blanket,but I, I don't understand why we would
use it to create things that give peoplejoy to create or people joy to consume.
why would we take that away from humans?
(45:48):
To me that like justdoesn't make a any sense.
I saw a meme that was basically,I want AI to do the dishes and the
washing, not to do the fun things.
Yeah, find out how to get theplastics out of the oceans.
Don't use it for stuff like that,or, you know, do operations, um, on
people so that, um, or, or theorizeon how to fix climate change.
(46:09):
But, but don't take away thecreative writing from us, that
we need that as humans and weneed it, need to read it as well.
So one of the things I said recentlyin a speech I gave AI was that I
think what's gonna become reallyvaluable in the future is, done by
humans because there is a connectionbetween the reader and the author.
(46:33):
So I think that, um, even if westart to use AI to write books
and they do get widely consumed,will always be readers who want
to only read stuff by real humans.
And I'm one of them.
There's no way that I would wannapick up a book written by AI because.
me, that's got no soul.
(46:53):
It doesn't matter how good the writing is.
I've got no connection witha human who has created that.
So it is, it's not interesting to me.
So I do believe, and I hope that at somepoint, human writing will become the
most valued kind of writing out there.
yeah, strange times.
We're living in.
Absolutely.
(47:14):
So there's lots and lots of positivemeaning in what Sasha does as a writer.
We'll have a break nowand after the break.
We will have a look at how you do it.
We've had a look at what itmeans that Sasha is an author.
(47:36):
Now let's have a look at howyou become an author, Sasha.
How do you become an author?
Oh, okay.
So first you write a book, which soundssilly, but if you haven't got anything
to pitch, no one is going to sign you.
And I'm talking specifically aboutbeing a novelist here because nonfiction
(47:59):
authors actually can go human firstpitch and then the book, they can go
and pitch their expertise and say,Hey, I wanna write a book about this.
Are you interested in publishing itand work with the publisher that way?
You cannot do that as a fiction author.
the only person who can possibly do that.
the biggest, most famous,richest author in the world.
(48:20):
They could probably go to a publisher andgo, Hey, I wanna write a book about this.
with youth publisher and thepublisher, if they know what side
their bread is buttered, we'll say yes.
But most of us have to writethat book first, and then we have
to get it as good as it can be.
So, do not make the mistake ofwriting your book and then sending
the first draft, because mostlikely, unless you are like one in
(48:43):
a million, it's, it's not ready.
It needs work.
this is where you have to put yourbig girl or big boy pants on and show
it to someone else, preferably notyour own mom, who, whilst your mom
might be an avid reader and quite acritical reader, they also love you
more than anything on this earth.
So they're probably not gonnagive you accurate feedback.
(49:04):
So find yourself a writinggroup or a critique partner.
There are groups on socialmedia, like on Facebook, where
you can find critique partners.
I think they're just called,you know, critique partner
group or something like that.
you can also find them, usuallyyour local library will know if
there's a local writer's group.
(49:25):
otherwise just kind of get in touchwith someone, sort of reach out online
and see if you can find a writingcommunity online and just share the work.
So you read theirs, they readyours, and they give a bit feedback.
might not be the perfect feedback.
It, it won't be as good asyou could get from, say, a
publisher or even a professionaleditor, but it'll be feedback.
It'll give you a starting point.
(49:47):
And the kind of feedback you wantis not, is this good or bad, because
that is a subjective question andthere is no such thing as good or bad.
There is however, the opportunity foryou to get reasonably objective feedback
about stuff like character development.
Or setting the scene.
Have you established where thecharacters are standing in the room?
(50:10):
What's on the walls?
have you told thereader, what era this is?
Have you set enough of a scene so thatyou know what the characters roughly look
like and what they're wearing and whatkinds of objects they have around them?
you can also get objective feedbackor relatively objective feedback
on things like, how your characteris coming across on the page.
(50:30):
So if they're a relatable person, ifthey start somewhere in the story and
then end up somewhere else, kind ofpsychologically speaking, which is
a really important part of any book.
So those are the thingsyou can get feedback on.
The other one is genre, and it's really,really important to know your genre before
you try and pitch your work anywhere.
(50:52):
Because if you don't knowwhere this is gonna sit on the
bookshelves in a bookstore, yourpublisher won't know either.
And if they don't know that, thenthey can't create a product out of it.
your book is a product for you.
It's a work of art for them.
It's a product.
what they're gonna need toknow is what the book is about,
who is likely to read it.
(51:13):
not saying, because a lot of us kind ofgo, oh look, anyone would love this book.
You know, from the age of 15 to 90.
No, no, no, no, no.
You need to know who is mostlikely to love this book.
it is probably going to be a reallyquite specific age range and a
quite a specific gender even.
and it might be, you know, for instance,uh, the people who turn up to my
(51:37):
adult book launches are generallywomen between the ages of 30 and 60.
So that's my readership right there.
So I think about themwhen I'm writing my books.
yeah, genre.
So you also need to be understanding,you know, if you've got horror
elements in there, but you've writtena romance, is that gonna work?
Is that gonna work for your reader?
Is that gonna work for the publisher?
(51:58):
How are they gonna package that?
Look, it might work, butyou need to understand how.
And, so if you've got genre crossoverthere, make sure it's deliberate and make
sure you understand that that's going onand you talk about it with the publisher.
Then you can also go into abookshop, pick up an Australia
title and look at the publisher.
(52:19):
Once you've got the name of thepublishing house, you can then go back
to the acknowledgements section atthe end and find out who the actual
publisher in the publishing house was.
if that book is in your genre andyou feel like it's a comparable
title to yours, then that isthe person you can pitch it to.
But finding pitching opportunitiesin Australia can be quite difficult.
(52:41):
A lot of publishing houses are only opena couple of times a year for pitching,
so you need to diarize those dates.
other publishing houses will onlyaccept pitches through agents, so
then you need to think about whetheryou want an agent or not, and
then which sort of agent you want.
So there's a lot of things going on.
So I guess the, the mainthing is to write a book.
(53:02):
And the second thing is toacquaint yourself with the industry
and how to pitch and how tounderstand your book as a product.
It all sounds so simple on thecover, and that's why there's
so many pages in the book.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Look, there's,
I.
a big learning curve and I guess yourselfin a community of other writers who are
(53:25):
aiming for publication of the best thingsyou can do for yourself as a writer.
Because writer, you will learn fromeach other, then you don't have to
go out and start inventing the wheel.
That sounds like a, totallyappropriate way to approach if you
want to get your book published.
Yeah.
I think it's
Thank you very much.
(53:46):
Sasha, we've talked a fair bit about justhow this whole process comes together.
but what's next for you?
Oh, okay.
So I've got a book coming out next week.
It's sitting right infront of me at the moment.
It's, called a Lesson in Curses, andthis is one of my self-published titles.
is what I'm calling my experiment book.
(54:06):
I drafted this book very quickly, I putit away for a month and I edited it.
But I also used a very strong outliningsystem so that I wasn't, spending a
lot of time drafting and redrafting.
So I used a really strong outlinethat I knew that I could just,
produce the book along a veryorganized and strategic pathway.
(54:29):
Then I, gave it to an editor.
She looked at it, she gave me feedback.
I did my own feedback after puttingit away for a month, which is a
really important thing as well.
And now putting that book out.
I didn't spend a lot of time ormoney on things like the cover.
my experiment is that I'm gonnalow cost, produce a book, put it
(54:49):
out there and promote the hell outof it, and just see what happens.
Because I think one of the thingsthat, slows me down a little bit in
life is that I'm a perfectionist.
And often I will fret and primp and,and stress over little things that I
probably don't need to, where I shouldjust be getting the damn thing out
(55:10):
there and, and seeing if it sells.
So that's my next thing.
And then the other big thing that I'vekind of got in the works at the moment
is my 2026 title, which is calledthe Society of Literary Marauders.
It's set in 1928.
It's about an Australian girl.
She's a working class girl whogoes over to Oxford University.
She gets a, a surprise opportunity to gothere, and it's, it's a book all about.
(55:36):
Culture clash and, gender and classin the peak of the British Empire.
So it ends up being about four youngwomen who are all in the same residential
hall at the women's college in Oxford.
Two of them are Australian, one is Indian,part of the, uh, British Empire in India.
(55:57):
And the other one is a workingclass woman from a disadvantaged
background in Yorkshire.
But they form the society ofliterary marauders and start
to read band books together.
So it's a secret society where they startto learn about the world, about sex,
about feminism, about class and cultureempire through their experiences, but
(56:21):
also through the books they're reading.
I'm very excited about it.
My publisher is very excited about it.
we've got a nice long leadtime 'cause we're gonna be
pitching it internationally,trying to get a book deal.
Across the world and have themall come out at the same time.
So yeah, that's, I've justfinishing finished editing that.
It's going into the copy editing stage,which is just kind of tweaks and yeah.
(56:42):
the rights director at Pantera iscurrently pitching that worldwide.
Wow.
That's a big deal.
Yes.
Very excited about that one.
I'll bet, I'll bet.
thank you very much Sasha, forbeing on Forrest.Chat And all
Forrest.Chat listeners, wish you allthe best with your next adventures.
Thank you.
If anyone is interested in becominga writer, I urge you to pursue it.
(57:06):
It is an amazing.
Amazing, dream to achieveand an amazing job to pursue.
So whether it's your kind of personalfamily history or your memoir or you've
got a story in, you just go ahead andstart writing and see what happens because
yeah, it's, it's rewarding and it's fun.
Thank you
A pleasure to have you on.
(57:28):
You've been listening to Forrest.Chatwhere we talk about individual endeavor
in Western Australia, what it takes,what it means, and how you do it.
I'm your host, Paul van der Mey, andin today's episode we talked with
Sasha Wasley about being an author.
Remember, there are four ways toget involved with Forrest.Chat.
(57:49):
share the domain, Forrest.Chat with yourfriends and family and people you meet.
When you sign up for the emails, youget advanced notice of the episodes.
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(58:12):
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Book an advert atForrest.Chat slash advert.
I'm looking forward to seeingyou again with our next guest.
Until then, enjoy making it happen.
Welcome to Forrest.Chat, where wetalk about individual endeavor in
Western Australia, what it takes,what it means, and how you do it.
I'm your host, Paul van der Mey, andin today's episode, we are talking with
Sasha Wasley about being an author.
Sasha can't seem to constrainherself to one genre.
(00:25):
She writes middle grade fictionand urban fantasy as Ash Harrier.
Her debut novel was published in 2015.
Today she lives in the Perth Hills regionwith her partner and two adult children
surrounded by dogs, cats, and chickens.
Welcome to Forrest.Chat, Sasha.
I.
Thank you, Paul.
(00:46):
I'm so happy to be here.
Great to have you here, Sasha.
We've been talking before we gotonline about all the different
types of authoring that you've done.
What type of author are you?
Oh, I think the best word todescribe me would be a hybrid author,
which encompasses, traditionalpublishing as well as small press
(01:10):
publishing and self-publishing.
So I have done all three, been there,done that, and, and have the t-shirt.
as a result I consider that Ihave got a fairly, good breadth of
experience in the industry and Ioften therefore work with aspiring
authors to help them choose their path.
(01:31):
How do you go about that?
Work with aspiring authors.
Well, I run a program called Path toPublished and I also run a substack called
the Book Path, And it's all about givingauthors some guidance because the one
thing about this industry is that nobodytells you what it's really like until
you're there and you're learning it.
(01:52):
And I've been in the industry for 10years now, I figure that I've got some
knowledge and I wanna share that withother authors because as a newbie author,
I really didn't have a clue, and thatmade it really quite difficult for me.
for example, I didn't know howto interact with my publisher.
I didn't know how tointeract with my agent.
(02:14):
I didn't know how the process of producinga book looked what to expect from it.
But everyone kind of thinksthat you do know that.
when it comes down to it, you're leftin the dark you don't know what's
going on and you hear from yourpublisher and agent, very rarely.
So when you transition from a regularjob where you're continually talking to
(02:37):
your boss or your supervisor throughoutthe day and your colleagues, and you know
what everyone else is doing roughly, youknow what you should be doing, there's
very little in the way of that when youbecome an author, particularly when you
shift into the full-time author role.
So I figured what I can do for theseaspiring authors is give them a
(02:57):
kind of a window into the process.
Help them understand what is goingto be expected of them, what kinds
of, interactions they can expect theshady goings on that occasionally
occur it is important to know aboutthat you, you shouldn't go into the
industry expecting to see that, but itis important to know how it all works.
(03:20):
And then just terminology, jargon, thingslike rights, translation rights, audio.
, rights reversion, which is somethingthat I undertook recently, which
I'll chat about a bit later.
And basically understandingcontracts, what sort of payments
(03:41):
to expect when you'll get them.
You know, when I, here's an example.
When I started out, was told that myadvance on royalties was a certain amount,
and I expected to get that all at once.
And what I didn't realize wasthat is going to be spread over
the three books in your contract.
And not just that, it's goingto be spread over three stages
(04:04):
of each book in your contract.
So you actually end up gettingaround about nine payments.
and you certainly don'tget it all at once.
So don't give up your day job assoon as you get that book contract.
'cause it's gonna be more likegetting little, um, Christmas
presents every few months.
so yes, the, those sorts of thingscome as a surprise as a baby author.
(04:28):
So I hold their hands during those toddleryears as they're learning to walk and
also help them with the, preparationof their book process and the pitching
coping with rejection because rejectionis not just, something you need to
(04:48):
deal with in the publishing industry.
It is a, a, a part of the job,an integral part of the job.
You will continue to get rejectionseven after you have become a
successful full-time author.
So that's something that'sreally important to understand.
It can be very finicky by thesounds of things, what they want
(05:08):
to publish at a particular time.
Yeah, you've absolutelynailed it on the head there.
So publishing is very much about,crashing into the right zeitgeist
at the right moment, and you don'treally always get that through
writing a wonderful quality book.
Sometimes you get that throughpure dumb luck as, uh, professor
(05:32):
McGonagal would say in Harry Potter.
I think you need to, hit the market atthe right moment with the right product,
and that can be very much down to, smarts.
So you need to be watchingwhat's happening in the market.
But how do you predict what'sgoing to be popular in 18 months?
(05:54):
That's really inside informationand a lot of the time the
publishers don't even have it.
I recently did a post on my substack whereI asked booksellers and agent and a couple
of publishers, what's hot, what's not,what's dead and what's coming, and I got
quite a wide variety of answers, whichI had sort of expected because no one
(06:19):
really knows when a publisher picks up abook, they can have a pretty good idea of
the popularity, of the genre, of whetherthe market is still really hot for that
kind of book and the quality of the book.
They can see if it's going toprobably make a splash, but there
(06:40):
are never any guarantees, however,that information allows them to make.
A certain size of investment inyou and your book as an author.
And the fact is there is a mid list,most authors end up either on the
mid list or right at the bottomwhere they don't sell many books.
(07:00):
The ones who make it big arevery, very far and few between.
So they'll make decisions aboutyou based on that information.
They'll also make a decisionwhether or not you're gonna be one
of their middle list authors orone of their breakout successes.
They can't always controlhow that pans out.
sometimes a middle lister hits the marketat exactly the right moment with the
(07:21):
right product and goes absolutely bonkers.
Which is amazing and everyone's excitedbecause they didn't spend that much
on you, but your next book, they'llhave to spend a lot more on you.
And sometimes the what they tout asa breakout success and they pour all
their energy and all their resourcesinto it just doesn't come off.
So, there's very littlecertainty in this industry.
(07:44):
I hope I'm not putting people offbeing an author by talking about this.
but these are the facts andthis is what I've learned over
10 years of being an author.
And I've kind of had toreally get my head screwed on.
'cause I came into it quite starry-eyed.
I thought that my first book, which waspicked up by a tiny little publisher, in
(08:04):
Canada digital only and print on demand.
So basically they rely on Amazon.
It's pretty much likeself-publishing, except I didn't
have to pay for a cover design.
did very little editing on my book,just enough to make sure there were
no typos out it went into the world.
And I expected.
It was going to be the next HarryPotter or the next Hunger Games.
(08:27):
you know, so you can imagine how excitedI was when after the first couple of weeks
I'd sold maybe a dozen copies of the book.
I had to come back downto earth with a bump.
And guess that was my first biglesson in the publishing industry is
that no matter how much you want it,it doesn't mean it's gonna happen.
(08:47):
can't just visualize or manifestsuccess into being, you have to
actually go through your paces.
There are very, very few, evenless than the number I was talking
about, of successful authors beforewho make it big first time round.
So the successful debutauthor is like a unicorn.
(09:09):
There's very few of them.
And you'll be surprised ifyou ever meet one of them.
And a lot of the time youdon't know what's going on in
the background there either.
So I guess the moral of that storyis come into the industry hopeful
and believing in yourself, but notexpecting success with that first book.
(09:33):
Because normally it is alittle bit like an internship.
You need to do your paces, you needto get your training under your belt.
you need to experience havingbooks out in the world before
you hit your breakout success.
consider that I have notever had a breakout success.
(09:54):
I've had some books moresuccessful than others.
but I am firmly on the mid list,and that's okay because I'm
a surviving full-time author.
I've managed to diversify my income enoughthat I am able to do this full-time.
certainly, it wouldn't have paid off ifI had thought that that first book was my
(10:14):
big chance and that was the only chance.
So I'm glad that I stuck at it.
And you've had the experience ofbeing published by a publisher
and then also an indie publisher.
Was that your first book?
So I've had a few different,publishers and paths.
Should I run through them?
(10:35):
Yeah, I.
Okay.
So my first book, as I said,very small digital only press.
wonderful little publishing house.
And I guess that was like my plan BIhad always just been pitching to big
established publishers and I had gotnowhere talking 25 years of pitching.
I was 40 when I got myfirst publishing deal.
(10:57):
I. And that was the small press.
And it was because I lowered myexpectations not to be insulting to
that press because they're great.
They've been around for a long timenow, and they give authors their start
and they support their authors and alot of their authors stick with them.
I did for three books.
and then I managed to get anAustralian traditional publishing
(11:19):
deal with Penguin Random House, Idiscovered that that for me was much
more what I was after as an author.
wanted to see my books on shelves inshops I wanted people to be buying my
print books and have them reading themon trains and, sending me emails to
say that they'd liked them and I wantedto be going to book launches and all.
(11:42):
I wanted all the trappingsassociated with being an author.
But more than any of all of that, Ijust wanted to see my books on shelves.
So that was the experienceI got from, from being with.
Penguin Random House.
That was a three book deal.
In the meantime, um, between thetwo, I'd had a little blip where
I tried some self-publishing.
(12:03):
I put out five books in rapidsuccession probably within 18
months, really got nowhere with that.
I did not know what I was doing.
I could see other people doingit and having major success,
and I couldn't understand whythat wasn't happening for me.
I understand now because I look backand I go, ah, I actually had not hit
(12:27):
the right genre, no one could reallyunderstand what, what genre my books were.
And for that kind of publishing,you need to be a hundred percent
sure of the kinds of books you'reputting out and who your readers are.
So all of that was a bitconfused mess for me.
So yeah, hardly sold any of those.
(12:48):
then I transitioned from a, the, thebig publisher, penguin Random House.
I went over to Pantera Press, whichis a medium-sized Australian publisher
who've had some, big successes andsome moderate successes and, you know,
they've kind of been there, done that.
I really loved the angle that they had.
They were a progressive, dynamic, changefocused publisher, which is kind of the
(13:12):
reason, reason d'etre for my writing.
I like to affect changethrough my writing, which
I'll talk about a bit later.
so I really jelled beautifully withthe publisher, the role, because of
course when we talk about a publisher,most of us mean a publishing house,
but actually a publisher is arole within the publishing house.
(13:34):
my publisher there, Lex Hurst, isthe publisher I still work with today
for my traditionally published books.
went over to her in 2019.
My first book with them came out in 2021.
just we skipped over thecovid year, thank goodness.
And, I've had a book out almostevery year with them since they
(13:55):
also publish my middle grade books.
my Alice England books as Ash Harrier.
And since then I have also decided that Iwould self-publish a couple of other books
kind of as something to keep me busy inthe background because I find traditional
publishing is a little bit slow for me.
One book a year or everycouple of years suit me.
(14:19):
I need to be writing more than that.
So this last year requested my rights backfrom my first little digital publisher.
I had three books with them, as Isaid, and the rights had expired.
So I contacted them and said I wouldlike my rights back because I want to
rewrite those books and I wanna putthem out myself and just give them
(14:40):
another little chance in the market.
So that's where I'm at now.
I've got, two self-published booksnow, uh, in the last six months, and
got another one coming out in May andanother one coming out in September.
We've got a very good schedule there.
(15:00):
You know where you're going.
I coming.
Yes.
And I never give myselftime to stop and breathe.
It's sort of, that comment almost seems alittle bit, uh, strange because you think
that writing is something that you wantto actually stop and breathe and write.
Yeah, look, I guess, I've got twospeeds and slower one I use for my
(15:26):
traditionally published books, sothe book that is coming out next,
which is not until March, 2026.
Has been a much slower process.
It involved a lot of research.
it's a historical book it's a, a big book.
It's 130,000 words.
And, it took a long time towrite and a long time to edit.
(15:48):
And now it's gonna take along time to prep production
because we wanna do this right.
wanna get it out to advanced readersand the media with a really long
period of time for them to read it,review it, and hopefully promote it.
Whereas with self-published, you tendto work a lot faster because it is about
(16:11):
capturing a moment, getting a book outin a moment that people want to read
that kind of book, then capturing theminto some kind of email list, so that
they are going to buy your other books.
So you wanna get books out prettyquickly so you've got a backlist behind
you that these people are gonna be.
(16:32):
So it's quite a different approach.
One of them is very much theartist, the creative artist, much
more traditional kind of mindset.
And the other one is the business,it is, a hustler basically.
So I've got my, my hustle role,and then I've got my artiste role.
I can see that.
you really wanna be balancing that.
(16:53):
And I would imagine that, they bothcan take up a lot of your time.
Yeah, you're right there.
find that the business side can take up,it's like a black hole of time and energy.
can take everything out of you.
So I have to be careful.
I've, I found myselfquite burnt out last year.
It was after running somethingcalled a Kickstarter.
(17:15):
So it's basically for your listeners.
Who might not have heard of it.
It is a crowdfunding platformessentially you do like an early release.
So if you're an author, you can do a bitof an early release or a special edition
release and people back their projectand in doing so, they buy the product.
but they only lose their moneyor spend their money if the
(17:38):
project hits a certain goal.
So my book did this was the one that Itook the rights back for and I created an
early special edition with hardcover anda special dust jacket and all of that.
it got funded to the point whereI could pay for my editor, for my
cover design, for the productionof the book, setting everything up.
(18:00):
then, everyone got their books aroundHalloween last year, which was suitable
because it's kind of a spooky story.
And then I released it to the publicjust this month on the 2nd of February.
that was amazing.
But talk about energy and timerequired to run that Kickstarter.
I had never done anything like thatbefore, I was absolutely thrilled
(18:22):
when it hit its target within thefirst, I think it was 12 hours.
So that was, you know, blew my mind.
But then you have to continue.
And the rule is, with a Kickstarter, youhave to post about it on your socials
much more than you feel comfortable with.
And I'm a bit of an introvert.
I also hate asking peopleto do things for me.
That's one of my, myblockages, my soul blockages.
(18:45):
So with a Kickstarter, you have to askpeople to do things for you continually.
And you also have to bereally extroverted about it.
So you have to get on video and youhave to talk to people, publicly.
So I was getting on there everyday and saying, Hey, coming back my
Kickstarter, and hey, will you helpme spread the word and share my posts?
And it was very uncomfortable for me.
(19:08):
was right out of the comfort zone.
And at the end of it, I had this periodwhere I felt very flat and very tired.
I needed a lot of sleep.
I felt a bit depressed aswell, and very uncreative.
I couldn't write like mybrain, no work no more.
So, um, luckily after about amonth's rest, I came out of that
(19:31):
and things got back to normal.
But I was panicking for a while.
I thought, oh my gosh,have I expended myself?
Am I no more going to be an author?
It's amazing when you get intosomething, so deeply and takes over
your life in effect that you haveto pull back almost completely and
wait before other things come back.
It's sort of like a healingprocess you have to go through.
(19:53):
I.
That's so true.
Yeah, that's exactly what it was.
It was almost like period of,intense training and, you know,
performance, high performance.
And then I needed thatrest period afterwards.
if only I'd come out of itphysically, like I'd been through a
period of intense training and highperformance, but it was just the
(20:14):
mental stuff that was going on for me.
Yeah, on the physical side, we regularlysee people who run marathons and they
do so much getting up to the marathon,like they've really had to work hard
to get there and they get through it.
And then you don't see them for a monthor, or longer sometimes because they're
(20:37):
just over the whole process of running.
They don't even wanna pull their shoes on.
And that sounds a very similar thingto what, what you've had that was a
physical example and, and yours is amental example, so it can happen in both.
Spheres and probablyin other ways too, but.
Yeah, absolutely.
And one of the things that people oftendiscover about being a creative, so
(20:59):
being an artist or um, a performer ora poet or an author, is that if you're
stressed, very hard to tap the creativeWell, so it's happened before to me when
one of my children was going through asevere mental health crisis and quite
prolonged where I, I actually didwonder if I had told all the stories
(21:20):
that were in me because I couldn't findanything that I wanted to write about.
bring myself to write.
But after things improved a bit withmy, um, with my child, then it came
back, the creative well opened up again.
So that was, that was a relief.
need to, when you find yourselfin that spot, you need to trust
(21:40):
that it's gonna come to an end,will find that creativity again.
but during that time, justallow yourself to, to have the,
the black moment, I suppose.
don't try and push through, because Ithink anything you write is probably not
going to be, it's not gonna come out well.
It'll be strained and forcedand it, yeah, it won't, it won't
(22:02):
be your best creative work.
So you might as well just letyourself have that recovery time.
Yes.
You're better off doing the recovery.
Definitely.
absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
some slack.
You know, I need to take my own adviceto be quite honest, but this is what I
tell my, my, authors that I work with.
know, if you're having a reallybad time, put things on pause with
(22:23):
your writing, come back to it.
thing that writers have is theinsatiable urge to write, and
that's never gonna go away.
You might have periods where it'sless strong, it's never gonna go away.
That's comforting to know.
So we've actually talked a few thingsabout what it takes you to be an author.
Is there anything you might want to addto what it takes you to be an author?
(22:49):
Yeah, I would say the first thingthat, makes an author is reading.
So when I was a child, we didn'thave a lot of money, but I had a
very resourceful older sister onething she was really good at was
begging, borrowing and stealing books.
And I say that quite literally becausea lot of our books had still had their
little library slip in them, becauseshe had just never returned them.
(23:12):
I consider it a virtuous theft.
However, because what she wasdoing was providing for her younger
siblings, her own little library andI would go and borrow books from it.
And, so therefore Ibecame a voracious reader.
I also borrowed booksmyself from libraries.
and I, I'm sure I occasionallyaccidentally stole them as well because,
(23:33):
you know, sometimes years later you findone in the bottom, right at the bottom
of your bag or your closet or whatever,and you go, oops, one never went back.
I also had family members who gaveme books for my birthday 'cause
they knew that I was a reader.
I had a good collection ofbooks and I read and I reread.
And for me it was escapism.
I'm pretty sure now that Ilook back that I'm undiagnosed,
(23:57):
maybe autism spectrum disorder.
And therefore, me, a lot of thesocial world at school was a mystery.
I was quite introspective and quiteuneasy in that school environment.
when all else failed, go and sitin the library and read a book.
(24:19):
Um, it was my escape.
then when I discovered I couldwrite, and I still remember this,
I still remember learning to print,which was quite, you know, everyone
learns to print, print letters.
But then around the age of eight,they taught us running, writing.
And for me that was a revelation.
I remember going and sitting inmy school library in a beanbag
(24:41):
just with a bit of paper and justpracticing my running writing.
And I'm sure it was all wrongbecause I wasn't doing it
under guidance or anything.
But what it did for me wasrealize that I could write faster.
I could write things.
So I started writing stories and Iwas that annoying kid at school who
would hand in a 10 page story whenthe teacher only wanted one page.
(25:01):
I am sure they probably didn't read it.
They just, you know, gave me thesmiley face on this stamp at the end.
but yeah, once I realized that, um,it wasn't enough to be handing in
the stories at school, I startedwriting them for my friends, or
for my sisters, or, or for myself.
it started as letters to my friends and Iwould make up little stories within those.
(25:22):
And then it became radioplays where we would record
things on our cassette player.
And, then it became stories,and the stories became books.
So by the age of 14, I hadwritten my first book length
story, it never got finished.
You know, the thing was massive.
so early reading turned into writing.
(25:42):
And for me, then thewriting became the escapism.
It was my way of switching off mybrain my brain had a lot of messy stuff
going on in it, as all teenagers do.
But I think with the undiagnosedneuro neurodivergence as well,
there was probably a lot of angstgoing on in there, I now see in my
kids because they've got it too.
(26:03):
They've been diagnosed, which theyuse various methods to switch off.
they both write as well,and they both read.
So I believe that, a lot of authors, alot of writers have neurodiversity in
their background and they're using it asa way to calm the thoughts, get some of
(26:24):
the ideas out, and escape from some of thedifficulties of the neurotypical universe.
So I guess that's, um,probably my biggest.
for anyone who wants to be a writeris make sure you're also a reader.
I have met people who say, I,I'm a writer, but I don't read.
I always look at them with a veryskeptical eyebrow because, I just don't
(26:48):
see how you can really understand wordsand writing without having done the
hard yards of being the reader as well.
So I would recommend to them thatthey go away and do some reading, or
at least be listening to audio booksand, you know, reading something.
I just don't see how you canmaster the craft of writing if
you haven't also been a reader.
(27:09):
It is sort of like nothaving a feedback loop.
Yes, yes.
And I think it's Roald Dahl, or itmight have been one, oh, it's one
of the other very well known authorswould spend, three or four hours in
the morning writing and then three orfour hours, like the matching amount
(27:30):
of time in the afternoon reading.
actually how I do my day.
I do the output in the morning andI do the input in the afternoon.
because to move very hard, hardand fast when it comes to writing.
destroyed keyboards over theyears will be testament to that.
in the morning it's my writing time,it's when my brain is switched on.
I've got a lot of energy, so Ipour all those words onto the page.
(27:53):
Then in the afternoon, it's likemy kind of dead brain time and
I've thought all those words outand what I need to do is refill.
So I need that feedbackcycle to happen there.
That's when I read, and I dospend probably as long reading
as I do writing every day.
It is interesting to hear that youhave a balance like that and you're
not the only one that has that balance.
(28:16):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think a lot of authors and writersthink that they just have to pour
out as many words as they can, butthat's not sustainable because.
think the words would dip inquality towards the end of the day.
You know, you just, it's hard mental work,creating stories in your head and putting
them onto a page, that's, that's reallyquite a process when you think about it.
(28:38):
And there is a point thereduring the writing of any
book where it does consume me.
And at that point I tend to all daylong and I can feel it, you know, by
the end of a couple of weeks of that.
I'm like a little hunched bentover, pretzel, you know, physically
I'm so exhausted and sore.
(29:01):
and it's always, oh, thankheavens when it actually finishes.
But the, story takes over atthat point, and there's just
nothing I could do about it.
I just have to get the rest of it out.
It's almost like I'm on a downhillski run and I just have to stay
on the skis and let it happen.
But that's usually only thelast quarter of the book.
So up to that point, I have, I'm a lotmore balanced in the actual process.
(29:24):
You can see the finish line by the soundof things, and you've got momentum.
yes, the momentum and it carriesyou, but yeah, you're gonna be sore.
It's a very sedentary process, writing.
Yes.
It's amazing how all of thatcomes together and you, and you
end up with the finished product.
Yes.
Yeah.
(29:45):
And I was trying to, explain beforethat there's an analogy, quite a
famous one that, pouring out thatfirst draft is getting sand into
your sandpit, and then you've got theediting process, and that's where you
make your castles out of the sand.
Because before that, what you're doingis you're telling yourself the story.
So you're formulating characters andyou're formulating instances, and
(30:08):
scenes, and, moments in the plot.
But then what you have todo is make it coherent.
And make sure that it's tight, that yourcharacters are developing through the
action in the plot, that you haven'tgot superfluous scenes or that you
have expressed all of the ways thatthe character has to grow through
what happens to them in the story.
(30:29):
that bit is, it's a slowerprocess for me anyway.
For some people, it's quicker, and it is,it's not a process to be skipped over or
taken lightly because if all you've doneis pour words into a bucket, then you
need to be making something beautiful,weaving them all together that you've got
(30:49):
something that is an artwork at the end.
the same way that a, an artist, andmy partner is an artist, so I can, I
can, speak with some knowledge here.
They block in thebackground of their canvas.
So they, they do what's blocking it.
They call blocking in, which isbasically getting some color into
the background on the canvas.
(31:09):
And then, some shape.
And then they go in and it's much moredetailed process and the color and the
shape on the canvas is the equivalentof the first draft for a writer.
And then going in and addingthe detail and moving things
around and making it an artwork.
That's the editing process for the writer.
That's very interesting.
I've not heard of that connectionbetween doing artwork and, and
(31:35):
writing a book and you are living it.
Yes.
I've had a lot of timeto, um, think about this.
I watch him go and, I mean, not anartist at all, so it's kind of mind
blowing to watch produce something.
and then sometimes I'll come inpartway through and I'll look at
it and I'll think to myself, well,hope he doesn't ask me what I think.
(31:58):
'cause I don't thinkthat's very good at all.
Doesn't.
And it's exactly the same as if he wereto come in and look at one of my things
partway through the editing process.
And he'd go, that's not making sense.
And why is this characternot doing this here?
And, and all of that, you know?
But then at the end,his artwork is stunning.
(32:20):
And at the end, hopefully my bookis coherent and, and well woven
so that it's a, a strong story.
You talk about the, the process.
How do you resolve the mind workingat one speed and you're typing
at a totally different speed.
Oh, sometimes I wish myfingers could move fast.
(32:44):
I actually tight with two fingers.
I never learned to touch type, but I typedso fast with these two fingers, which
is probably why my keyboards because Ilearnt to type on, I taught myself to type
on a manual typewriter and therefore Istill type as if I'm typing on a manual
typewriter, which is hard and fierce.
So, yeah, these two fingershave got a lot of power in them.
(33:06):
They can move pretty fast, I suppose.
It is frustrating sometimes 'causeyou do want 'em to move faster and
some people, dictate their storiesand then have AI transcribe them.
And I thought maybe I could do thatand possibly I need to practice more.
But when I did it, I found that Irambled and my story was not tight at
(33:27):
all and I pretty much had to deletethe whole scene that I dictated.
for me, it's very much a process of thethinking occurs through the kinesthetic
movement of my fingers, tapping away atletters or scratching with a pen on paper.
I think that they're pretty well matched.
Mostly I'm thinking sentencesformulating them in real time
(33:49):
as I'm putting them onto a page.
But yeah, you're right.
Sometimes, especially during thatperiod, towards the end, when I'm
on the downhill run, I can't keep upwith what's coming, what's happening
in the head, um, on the page.
So, which is why I end up so tired.
Physically tired.
Yeah.
But most of the time itmatches up pretty nicely.
we've had a good look now atwhat it takes to be an author.
(34:13):
We'll have a break and afterthe break we'll come back and
have a look at what it means.
We've had a look at whatit takes to be an author.
Now let's have a look at whatit means, Sasha, what does it
mean to you, your family or thecommunity that you are an author?
(34:38):
Well, to me it means the achievementof a lifelong dream, because when I
was a kid, I wanted to be a writer, butI didn't think that it was possible.
It was on the same level tome as becoming a movie star.
So I thought the likelihoodof it was very low.
I thought that perhaps one day I mightget a book published, but I would
(35:00):
have to continue having another job.
So to now be a full-timeauthor is, it's magical.
It's, I'm living my dream andI get to get up every day and
do exactly what I wanna do.
I'm not saying it's not hard andthat there's some parts of it that
I don't enjoy doing, But, I get togo out and say I'm an author, when
(35:24):
people ask me what I do for a living.
I get to write that on censusforms and, I get to go out.
I've made it.
and when I go out and run workshops, whichis kind of a secondary source of income
for me, even then when I'm teaching,I'm still being an author because I'm
(35:45):
teaching other people how to be an author.
So for me, it means everything.
And I hope it's never taken away fromme because I'll be a very, very sad
little sad little sack in the corner.
what it means to my family is,
I have been able to show mychildren that you can achieve your
dream, which is an amazing thingto role model for your children.
(36:09):
I think it's also helped my partner,get back into his art because
when I met him around 12 yearsago, he had stopped doing art.
And I have to admit, had notstopped, but certainly put fiction
as a backseat to, you know, inthe backseat on the back burner.
(36:30):
And when we met each other,we said to each other, you
know, what are your hobbies?
And I said, I love writing and reading.
And he said, can I seesomething that you've written?
And at first I thought to myself, no way.
And then I came round and I said, okay.
'cause no one had ever asked me before.
And so I showed him what I'd written.
And I said, by the way, you'vegotta show me some of your art now.
(36:52):
So he did that.
And then I said to him, whyaren't you still painting?
You're amazing.
And he said to me, whyaren't you published?
You're amazing.
And I said, well, I'm not published.
'cause no one wanted to publish my work.
And you know, I've got threenovels sitting there that
no one wanted to publish.
And he said, well, why don'tyou write something new?
and this is gonna sound crazy.
But I had never thought of that.
(37:13):
I had just been flogging away at thesethree novels for so many years and
just trying to get them published.
it had never occurred to me towrite something completely new.
So I did.
And that was my first published novel.
And he started doing art again.
He was creating gifts for me, for my kids.
he was doing artworks for hisfamily and then he got a place
(37:38):
in an exhibition and then he gotanother place in another exhibition.
And so we kind of created this environmentfor each other where we could both
creatively thrive, which is I think what.
relationship is founded on, andeven now, he hasn't quit his day job
yet, but he's doing art regularly.
He's going into exhibitionsa couple of times a year.
So I'm really incredibly proud of him.
(38:00):
And now my kids, they,pursue their dreams as well.
So one of them is working full-timein a retail job, is also creating
beautiful things and selling them online.
And my other child is, alsomaking beautiful things
and doing a lot of writing.
they have now started doingsome author PA services.
(38:22):
So they're kind of coming intothe author industry as well.
So they're helping self-publishedauthors with things like uploading
books and cover design and so on.
So I think that they've both reallybenefited from seeing both me and
my partner pursuing our creativeloves and making careers out of them.
But there is also the other side,which is that I have to go away fairly
(38:46):
regularly, for book tours and on writingretreats and running writing retreats
and doing appearances and workshops.
So I'm kind of requiredelsewhere a lot of the time.
so that, I suppose, must bea bit of a strain on them.
Plus I've become very hard to knowand difficult to live with around
(39:06):
that downward hill time of thebook writing where I literally
don't want to do anything else.
And they're kind of like, okay, wehave to go see my parents this weekend.
And I'm like, uh, do you thinkI'd be offended if I didn't come
because I just wanna sit down andwrite for the next 36 hour stream.
So, um, there's that side ofit as well for the community.
(39:29):
I think that books integral to thecommunity and I, you know, I've actually
got a lot of fears around AI and thedevelopment of streaming services and
so on, because they have taken overthat form of entertainment that people
were accessing through books before.
so it is not a very comfortable spaceat the moment to be, to be an author,
(39:50):
but believe there will always bepeople who want to read books and the
purpose they serve for those people.
Are manyfold, there's There'sentertainment, there's learning about life
there's learning about culture andother parts of the world and difference.
(40:14):
And the big thing for me when Iwrite is I've got a real passion
for social justice and for equality.
and all of that bleedsthrough into my writing.
So I've learned a lot from my kidsin terms of, understanding diversity
and difference in the community.
And that comes in throughmy writing as well.
So what I hope to do, and I'm not adidactic writer, I don't kind of go,
(40:38):
you know, this, this is the way theworld should be, or anything like that.
But I do write about difference andI write about how people understand
difference and come to accept it.
So doing that, what I hope to dois give people an insight into that
difference, but also give them hope.
(41:00):
So people who, who are differentand might not feel accepted in
society, show them visions of spacesand people who will accept them.
So a lot of my, especially my young adultand children's books feature the, what
they call the troop of found family.
it's where they don't necessarilyget everything they need from their
(41:22):
actual family, but when they findthis group of friends who accept
them for exactly who they are, thenthey get all the things they need.
And it's also about, I guess, familiescoming to terms with difference.
You know, there's a lot of thatgoing on in my books as well.
So that's my why.
(41:42):
It's, an amazing why to,be able to, put out there.
And as an author, you get to,choose how you go about that.
Yes, absolutely.
And as I say, I am with a veryprogressive kind of social change oriented
publisher, they're quite comfortablewith me writing things that, are kind
of challenging readers sometimes.
(42:04):
sounds like there's, lots of, positivemeanings there for the writing that
you do and also for your family and theway that, they're able to do what they
want to do simply because they've seenyou having a go at it for yourself.
Yeah, and I guess I shouldn'ttake credit for that completely.
I mean, we've always kind of supportedeach other, but to me it was always
(42:24):
important that my kids understood thatwhat we are born into is a system.
And it's got lots of cogs and wheels,and they shouldn't be fooled into
thinking that their whole reason forexisting is to work for someone else
and, produce stuff and, you know,kind of tie, just tie completely into
(42:45):
a, a consumer capitalist culture.
What I want them to understand is that weneed to find spaces within ourselves that,
give us joy and don't necessarily have anykind of financial value attached to them.
So a lot of what they docreation for creation sake.
(43:10):
I suppose what I've been able todo is turn that into a career, but
haven't lost the love of it either.
So yeah, it's kind of win-win for me.
But, I do want everyone to know thatyou don't have to always do things
that work into the economy in some way.
you should and can create thingsthat just add joy and beauty
(43:35):
to the world and to your life.
That's the whole oppositeof, stem science, technology,
engineering, mathematics.
And then there's the other sideof things, which is the social
sciences and art that, is needed forcommunity to actually be a community
(43:57):
And when you
how unis are being funded now you've gotlow course bills for those STEM topics.
And, and fair enough for some ofthe people, you know, some of the
industries we really need people inlike teaching and, nursing and so
on, but the arts and social sciences.
Are penalized, you know?
So basically we're doing is charginghuge amounts of money for degrees where
(44:23):
people are gonna become critical thinkers.
And to me that's a little bit suspicious.
If, if we're kind of not encouragingcritical thinking in terms of
culture and society, why not?
What are we afraid of?
Are we afraid of criticism?
Yeah.
So I, I, I'm a strong believerthat the arts and social
(44:44):
sciences are vital in society.
And I mean, what's happeningin the world right now?
There's, there's never been a moreimportant time to have critical thinking,
prioritized in a learning environment.
And you mentioned concerns aboutai and to me that looks like, STEM
(45:06):
attempting to take over the, socialsciences, maybe not the art, although,
they do pictures and stuff too,
Oh, absolutely the arts there's a lotof fear, from authors that soon AI will
be good enough to write stories that youcan't tell haven't been written by humans.
(45:27):
that mean we no longer have a job?
I think, um, I'm not anti AI blanket,but I, I don't understand why we would
use it to create things that give peoplejoy to create or people joy to consume.
why would we take that away from humans?
(45:48):
To me that like justdoesn't make a any sense.
I saw a meme that was basically,I want AI to do the dishes and the
washing, not to do the fun things.
Yeah, find out how to get theplastics out of the oceans.
Don't use it for stuff like that,or, you know, do operations, um, on
people so that, um, or, or theorizeon how to fix climate change.
(46:09):
But, but don't take away thecreative writing from us, that
we need that as humans and weneed it, need to read it as well.
So one of the things I said recentlyin a speech I gave AI was that I
think what's gonna become reallyvaluable in the future is, done by
humans because there is a connectionbetween the reader and the author.
(46:33):
So I think that, um, even if westart to use AI to write books
and they do get widely consumed,will always be readers who want
to only read stuff by real humans.
And I'm one of them.
There's no way that I would wannapick up a book written by AI because.
me, that's got no soul.
(46:53):
It doesn't matter how good the writing is.
I've got no connection witha human who has created that.
So it is, it's not interesting to me.
So I do believe, and I hope that at somepoint, human writing will become the
most valued kind of writing out there.
yeah, strange times.
We're living in.
Absolutely.
(47:14):
So there's lots and lots of positivemeaning in what Sasha does as a writer.
We'll have a break nowand after the break.
We will have a look at how you do it.
We've had a look at what itmeans that Sasha is an author.
(47:36):
Now let's have a look at howyou become an author, Sasha.
How do you become an author?
Oh, okay.
So first you write a book, which soundssilly, but if you haven't got anything
to pitch, no one is going to sign you.
And I'm talking specifically aboutbeing a novelist here because nonfiction
(47:59):
authors actually can go human firstpitch and then the book, they can go
and pitch their expertise and say,Hey, I wanna write a book about this.
Are you interested in publishing itand work with the publisher that way?
You cannot do that as a fiction author.
the only person who can possibly do that.
the biggest, most famous,richest author in the world.
(48:20):
They could probably go to a publisher andgo, Hey, I wanna write a book about this.
with youth publisher and thepublisher, if they know what side
their bread is buttered, we'll say yes.
But most of us have to writethat book first, and then we have
to get it as good as it can be.
So, do not make the mistake ofwriting your book and then sending
the first draft, because mostlikely, unless you are like one in
(48:43):
a million, it's, it's not ready.
It needs work.
this is where you have to put yourbig girl or big boy pants on and show
it to someone else, preferably notyour own mom, who, whilst your mom
might be an avid reader and quite acritical reader, they also love you
more than anything on this earth.
So they're probably not gonnagive you accurate feedback.
(49:04):
So find yourself a writinggroup or a critique partner.
There are groups on socialmedia, like on Facebook, where
you can find critique partners.
I think they're just called,you know, critique partner
group or something like that.
you can also find them, usuallyyour local library will know if
there's a local writer's group.
(49:25):
otherwise just kind of get in touchwith someone, sort of reach out online
and see if you can find a writingcommunity online and just share the work.
So you read theirs, they readyours, and they give a bit feedback.
might not be the perfect feedback.
It, it won't be as good asyou could get from, say, a
publisher or even a professionaleditor, but it'll be feedback.
It'll give you a starting point.
(49:47):
And the kind of feedback you wantis not, is this good or bad, because
that is a subjective question andthere is no such thing as good or bad.
There is however, the opportunity foryou to get reasonably objective feedback
about stuff like character development.
Or setting the scene.
Have you established where thecharacters are standing in the room?
(50:10):
What's on the walls?
have you told thereader, what era this is?
Have you set enough of a scene so thatyou know what the characters roughly look
like and what they're wearing and whatkinds of objects they have around them?
you can also get objective feedbackor relatively objective feedback
on things like, how your characteris coming across on the page.
(50:30):
So if they're a relatable person, ifthey start somewhere in the story and
then end up somewhere else, kind ofpsychologically speaking, which is
a really important part of any book.
So those are the thingsyou can get feedback on.
The other one is genre, and it's really,really important to know your genre before
you try and pitch your work anywhere.
(50:52):
Because if you don't knowwhere this is gonna sit on the
bookshelves in a bookstore, yourpublisher won't know either.
And if they don't know that, thenthey can't create a product out of it.
your book is a product for you.
It's a work of art for them.
It's a product.
what they're gonna need toknow is what the book is about,
who is likely to read it.
(51:13):
not saying, because a lot of us kind ofgo, oh look, anyone would love this book.
You know, from the age of 15 to 90.
No, no, no, no, no.
You need to know who is mostlikely to love this book.
it is probably going to be a reallyquite specific age range and a
quite a specific gender even.
and it might be, you know, for instance,uh, the people who turn up to my
(51:37):
adult book launches are generallywomen between the ages of 30 and 60.
So that's my readership right there.
So I think about themwhen I'm writing my books.
yeah, genre.
So you also need to be understanding,you know, if you've got horror
elements in there, but you've writtena romance, is that gonna work?
Is that gonna work for your reader?
Is that gonna work for the publisher?
(51:58):
How are they gonna package that?
Look, it might work, butyou need to understand how.
And, so if you've got genre crossoverthere, make sure it's deliberate and make
sure you understand that that's going onand you talk about it with the publisher.
Then you can also go into abookshop, pick up an Australia
title and look at the publisher.
(52:19):
Once you've got the name of thepublishing house, you can then go back
to the acknowledgements section atthe end and find out who the actual
publisher in the publishing house was.
if that book is in your genre andyou feel like it's a comparable
title to yours, then that isthe person you can pitch it to.
But finding pitching opportunitiesin Australia can be quite difficult.
(52:41):
A lot of publishing houses are only opena couple of times a year for pitching,
so you need to diarize those dates.
other publishing houses will onlyaccept pitches through agents, so
then you need to think about whetheryou want an agent or not, and
then which sort of agent you want.
So there's a lot of things going on.
So I guess the, the mainthing is to write a book.
(53:02):
And the second thing is toacquaint yourself with the industry
and how to pitch and how tounderstand your book as a product.
It all sounds so simple on thecover, and that's why there's
so many pages in the book.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Look, there's,
I.
a big learning curve and I guess yourselfin a community of other writers who are
(53:25):
aiming for publication of the best thingsyou can do for yourself as a writer.
Because writer, you will learn fromeach other, then you don't have to
go out and start inventing the wheel.
That sounds like a, totallyappropriate way to approach if you
want to get your book published.
Yeah.
I think it's
Thank you very much.
(53:46):
Sasha, we've talked a fair bit about justhow this whole process comes together.
but what's next for you?
Oh, okay.
So I've got a book coming out next week.
It's sitting right infront of me at the moment.
It's, called a Lesson in Curses, andthis is one of my self-published titles.
is what I'm calling my experiment book.
(54:06):
I drafted this book very quickly, I putit away for a month and I edited it.
But I also used a very strong outliningsystem so that I wasn't, spending a
lot of time drafting and redrafting.
So I used a really strong outlinethat I knew that I could just,
produce the book along a veryorganized and strategic pathway.
(54:29):
Then I, gave it to an editor.
She looked at it, she gave me feedback.
I did my own feedback after puttingit away for a month, which is a
really important thing as well.
And now putting that book out.
I didn't spend a lot of time ormoney on things like the cover.
my experiment is that I'm gonnalow cost, produce a book, put it
(54:49):
out there and promote the hell outof it, and just see what happens.
Because I think one of the thingsthat, slows me down a little bit in
life is that I'm a perfectionist.
And often I will fret and primp and,and stress over little things that I
probably don't need to, where I shouldjust be getting the damn thing out
(55:10):
there and, and seeing if it sells.
So that's my next thing.
And then the other big thing that I'vekind of got in the works at the moment
is my 2026 title, which is calledthe Society of Literary Marauders.
It's set in 1928.
It's about an Australian girl.
She's a working class girl whogoes over to Oxford University.
She gets a, a surprise opportunity to gothere, and it's, it's a book all about.
(55:36):
Culture clash and, gender and classin the peak of the British Empire.
So it ends up being about four youngwomen who are all in the same residential
hall at the women's college in Oxford.
Two of them are Australian, one is Indian,part of the, uh, British Empire in India.
(55:57):
And the other one is a workingclass woman from a disadvantaged
background in Yorkshire.
But they form the society ofliterary marauders and start
to read band books together.
So it's a secret society where they startto learn about the world, about sex,
about feminism, about class and cultureempire through their experiences, but
(56:21):
also through the books they're reading.
I'm very excited about it.
My publisher is very excited about it.
we've got a nice long leadtime 'cause we're gonna be
pitching it internationally,trying to get a book deal.
Across the world and have themall come out at the same time.
So yeah, that's, I've justfinishing finished editing that.
It's going into the copy editing stage,which is just kind of tweaks and yeah.
(56:42):
the rights director at Pantera iscurrently pitching that worldwide.
Wow.
That's a big deal.
Yes.
Very excited about that one.
I'll bet, I'll bet.
thank you very much Sasha, forbeing on Forrest.Chat And all
Forrest.Chat listeners, wish you allthe best with your next adventures.
Thank you.
If anyone is interested in becominga writer, I urge you to pursue it.
(57:06):
It is an amazing.
Amazing, dream to achieveand an amazing job to pursue.
So whether it's your kind of personalfamily history or your memoir or you've
got a story in, you just go ahead andstart writing and see what happens because
yeah, it's, it's rewarding and it's fun.
Thank you
A pleasure to have you on.
(57:28):
You've been listening to Forrest.Chatwhere we talk about individual endeavor
in Western Australia, what it takes,what it means, and how you do it.
I'm your host, Paul van der Mey, andin today's episode we talked with
Sasha Wasley about being an author.
Remember, there are four ways toget involved with Forrest.Chat.
(57:49):
share the domain, Forrest.Chat with yourfriends and family and people you meet.
When you sign up for the emails, youget advanced notice of the episodes.
Listen to the episodes atForrest.Chat slash episodes.
If you do something interesting thatothers may also find interesting, book an
interview at Forrest.Chat slash interview.
(58:12):
If you wanna support a local business.
Book an advert atForrest.Chat slash advert.
I'm looking forward to seeingyou again with our next guest.
Until then, enjoy making it happen.
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